


Good Intentions

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Withnail & I (1986)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-17
Updated: 2004-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:16:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1635980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for Lasair</p>
    </blockquote>





	Good Intentions

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Lasair

 

 

As soon as he was halfway up the stairwell, just enough time for him to adjust to the smell of grime and putrefying rot, Marwood knew that it had been very, very silly of him to expect Withnail to have changed.

He found him on the sofa - locked door? Marwood would have been grateful for a burglar to have stolen any of the junk decomposing within - eyes half closed and his long fingers clutched around an empty bottle of wine.

He could be dead. He could have been lying there for days, alone. A corpse saturated with alcohol. No one would know. The possibility that he was staring at Withnail's intoxicated and very dead body solidified in Marwood's mind.

"More booze," slurred the corpse, having detected another presence in the room. "Must have more booze...still conscious..." The bottle slipped from his fingers, and Marwood lunged forward to catch it before it shattered on the ground.

"Here," snapped Marwood, handing him a bottle of painfully cheap wine he had brought. It took Withnail several seconds to realise that it was unopened, and a further minute to discover that he didn't have a corkscrew.

He threw it back.

"Careful!" cried Marwood.

He went to the kitchen, trying to search for the corkscrew whilst ignoring the rancid shapes and smells surrounding him.

He found it just as Withnail called, "So what are you doing here? Look at you! Look at me!" He heard the creaking of springs, presumably Withnail sitting up, or at least managing to move in some form. "Haven't you opened that bottle yet? Why are the only open bottles empty, damn it!"

"You drank them. Look, it's open now. You should probably eat something."

"What and look like you? Successful and bloody rotund? It's disgusting." Withnail had pulled himself up into a sitting position, and looked to be in a state of mere semi-drunkenness, able to focus his eyes quite easily on Marwood. "Aren't you supposed to be on stage?"

"The runs over. Got another..." Tell him, go on, tell him. "Something else might come up, possibly." A shrug, non-committal, unhopeful. "I don't know."

"My agent's dead. Got run over by a truck last week. Bloody nuisance." It was an announcement made without a hint of remorse for the unfortunate agent.

"Oh. I can give you the number..."

"Thanks."

"What are you doing here?" Withnail stared at him, suspicious and paranoid and just a little hopeful. An odd sort of combination that had the ability to unnerve and reassure Marwood, depending on how far he felt he had fallen on the scale of mental stability. Actually having been on stage for a decent length of time was a help. He was an actor, by God! Funny how, when he had that thought, it was always in Withnail's voice.

"I missed you," he said quietly.

"Did you bring any food?" asked Withnail, taking a swig of wine.

"Sorry. I didn't think." I expected you to have been able to shop without me, actually, and to get your own bloody food. Damn it, Withnail, how dare you make me feel guilty for your own inadequacies? "Let's go out. We could get some food. You could sober up. Come on, you're rotting in here."  
"Fine," muttered Withnail, standing up and stumbling around looking for his tweed coat. The arm holding the wine flailed wildly, and, once again, Marwood saved Withnail from being the victim of broken glass.

+++

"Four pints and two gins please."

They hadn't made it any further than the pub, and now Withnail was looking at Marwood expectantly. He paid, reluctantly, and downed the gin.

This was easy, familiar. Keep drinking until they could barely stand then drag each other back to the flat, and into Withnail's bed. Sex wasn't guaranteed, of course: they'd both have to be conscious and at a particular stage of drunkenness where they still knew the basics of anatomy but were sufficiently intoxicated to not really care about what they were doing.

This was not what Marwood wanted.

This wasn't progress. He didn't do this anymore.

The second pint was half finished in a matter of minutes, but it was enough alcohol to give him the courage to say something, but it was Withnail who spoke first.

"I missed you too," he said, quietly, seriously.

Bloody liar, thought Marwood, even as he remembered the broken face of Withnail as he had begged him not to walk him to the station.

"I'm coming back to London," Marwood told him. "I've got...another part. Bigger show. I thought you might want to know." Before you read it somewhere, and drank yourself into a catatonic stupor, using me as an excuse.

"Come back to boast?" he spat. "You could have done that over the phone."

"You don't have a phone."

Withnail ignored him, staring at the bar, his face all dark shadows and pale planes. If the Grim Reaper was an alcoholic, thought Marwood.

"You'll visit?"

"If you like." Just so long as you don't expect me to sleep with you.

Marwood ordered the second round.

+++

Marwood thought it was all a bit nostalgic and not such a bad idea really until he woke with a splitting headache and Withnail's thin limbs sprawled over him.

"Bastard," he muttered. "Bastard!"

He scrambled out of the bed and grabbed his clothes. Going to the bathroom would be a mistake; Withnail didn't bother with such trivialities as cleaning.

Marwood dressed, but didn't quite have the heart to leave without saying goodbye. When he returned to the bedroom Withnail was sitting up against the headboard, smoking, a lazy smile playing on his face.

The guilt of almost sneaking out without a word evaporated. He'd have thrown something at the grin, but there wasn't anything convenient to hand.

"I thought you'd left," drawled Withnail in his best I'm-a-thespian-and-I'm- _acting_ voice.

"I'm glad you had fun."

"So you will visit then?"

"No!"

The grin widened. "Thought not."

Marwood left a slammed door behind him, already late for the afternoon rehearsal. In his head danced the image of a selfish, manipulative coward, grinning like he'd won something.

But then Withnail had always been the better actor.

 

 

 


End file.
